


Big and Small, Near and Far

by emmaliza



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Honour, Jealousy, Non-Explicit Sex, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 02:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13331769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaliza/pseuds/emmaliza
Summary: In the end, she leaves.The prince is but a means to an end, although she does find him sweet, with his strange sad stories of dreams and dragonfire. Sometimes as she squints she thinks she can see Brandon's wildblood in him, and Ned's solemn duty, but that is likely a fool girl's folly.She leaves chaos in her wake, as she has always left chaos in her wake. Her brothers are but two parts of a storm, the whirling exterior and the deathly quiet interior, but she is the centre. She ruins them just by living, and so it seems only fair that she ruins herself too.They will come for her, she knows they will. Perhaps one of them will even take her back.





	Big and Small, Near and Far

In the end, she leaves.

The prince is but a means to an end, although she does find him sweet, with his strange sad stories of dreams and dragonfire. Sometimes as she squints she thinks she can see Brandon's wildblood in him, and Ned's solemn duty, but that is likely a fool girl's folly.

She leaves chaos in her wake, as she has always left chaos in her wake. Her brothers are but two parts of a storm, the whirling exterior and the deathly quiet interior, but she is the centre. She ruins them just by living, and so it seems only fair that she ruins herself too.

They will come for her, she knows they will. Perhaps one of them will even take her back.

* * *

As long as she remembers, Brandon has always been there. He has always been the picture of an older brother, grinning and teasing and pulling her hair, then driving himself to madness when he makes her cry, always so much bigger than her. It's like he is a part of her, and she fashions herself in his image, his crude tongue and skill with a blade and unconquerable need to be free. Her father tries to warn her, that a young man may be given space to sow his wild oats but a lady will not be shown the same leniency. But as soon as he's not listening Brandon whispers in her ear, “Don't listen to him. You wouldn't be you if you weren't just as wild as me.”

He sleeps in her bed past the years he should, after her flowering, the same way they have always done. One morning he wakes with his fingers softly entwined with hers and she tells him, “Don't leave me.”

Brandon smirks at her. “Now why would I want to do a thing like that?”

She smiles. He never will, of course – though perhaps not how he thinks. But he is a part of her, so how could he ever leave her?

* * *

Years later, she will never admit it, but she weeps as she watches Ned leave. It's not as if he is being shipped off forever, her father tells her that he will be back every year, but to a girl of only six a year seems an eternity.

She counts the months until he returns, and Brandon huffs as he catches her staring at Maester Walys' calendar, seemingly rarely jealous. In revenge, when Ned comes back that first year, Brandon tells him that Lyanna has been wasting away without him, and Lyanna shoves a handful of snow down the back of his neck.

Every moon Ned makes it back he seems so different, taller and bigger, almost as big as Brandon – but moreover, he seems _different_ , as if the Eyrie itself has smashed him to another shape upon its rocks. One time his face is long, another his eyes solemn, another his smile shy. Every morning she wakes to meet him, she does so in joy and trepidation, wondering how he will have changed this time.

She is practically a woman by the time he stops being stolen south, but she sleeps in his bed that night, on the first night he is home with her for good. She is surprised Brandon doesn't. As he slumbers she whispers in his ear: “They should never have taken you away.”

But she isn't sure she believes it. If they hadn't taken him away, would he even be himself?

* * *

She begs Brandon not to marry the Tully girl. She goes through several easier attempts first – she jibes, she sneers, she cajoles, she threatens. But Brandon sees through them all, as he has always seen through her. They spar in secret beneath the drawbridge from one tower to the next, in shadow. “I bet she's ugly,” Lyanna whines as her blade meets her brother's. She is just young enough to get away with it, to forget all about the North and the rivers and the land their bodies belong to, to be selfish. “I bet she's a boring old would-be septa, I bet she'll be like a dead fish in bed. I've heard women from the Riverlands have fish scales, you know.”

This is unfair on poor Catelyn Tully, who she knows nothing about and has no reason to believe would be anything less than a perfect bride. She hopes Brandon knows she doesn't mean it. To his credit, he sees straight through her pettiness, and he laughs in her face. He reassures her that this doesn't mean he'll love her any less, that she will always be his favourite woman, that she will always be Lady of Winterfell in his heart. “But I am the heir to the North, Lya,” he tells her. “I must have a wife. I must have heirs.”

Lyanna scoffs. It is not like Brandon to do anything because he must. “Let Ned have it,” she tells him as their swords meet again. “Let him have the castle. Let him have the marriage. Let him have the North.”

She lunges for her brother's blade and he raises it up, blocking her. They stare at each other across the steel, and he smiles sadly before he raises an eyebrow. “Would that make you any happier?”

And she hesitates.

* * *

Ned, if she asked, would never wed. There is little need for him to – he is a second son, and Father has always expected one of his sons would go to the Wall. But if she asked, he wouldn't do that either. Ever since he returned from the south he has been by her side damn near always, as if he's making up all those years spent away. She looks over her shoulder sometimes and finds his eyes, solemn, cautious, keeping an eye on her. He wants to keep her safe. He is so unlike her, and yet she always smiles whenever he's nearby. They make a good pair.

Father betroths her to Robert Baratheon and there are whispers that Ned will come with them, as Robert's friend and her protector. Excitement and dread war in her heart. She wants Ned to stay with her, but she isn't sure he should. She has no interest at all in marrying the Baratheon boy.

Robert is Ned's closest friend, almost more a brother than he is to her or Brandon, and she wonders, if she told him how much she longs to escape her marriage, how far would he go to save her?

If she asked, Ned would never wed, and that is why she never will.

* * *

Brandon takes her maidenhead the night after she receives those roses. She laughs when she thinks it took being declared the most beautiful woman there to make him jealous, to make him realise another man may desire her.

Her door swings open and his teeth dig into her lip before it's shut again. She kicks it closed and bites back. She never denies him; there is too much wolf in her to do anything but give in to unconquerable need to mate. There are no words, only the language of touch spoken only by two people who know each other utterly.

She bleeds when his cock pushes inside her, and for a moment she dwells upon the blood they share, but somehow it seems trivial.

He kisses her gently after her spends, and then he leaves. In the morning they break their fast with their brothers and father, and neither of them blushes. Nothing has changed. Everything is as it has always been.

* * *

Ned never touches her, except as a brother. His arms around her waist, his lips upon her cheek, his hand locked with her own – all innocent, all as high as honour, as his foster father would say. It is only his eyes that give him away, those dark solemn eyes she finds herself lost in, and she watches him stare after her, pining, longing.

It makes her uneasy. Ned is not Brandon, he will never simply take her – as much as she might wish him too. He is too much of the south, of chivalry and duty, and not the call of the wild. There is enough wolf in him he will always want her, but enough man in him he will always loathe himself for it. If he ever actually had her, he would not be himself anymore.

Brandon can fuck her and she hardly thinks on it twice, but Ned's desperate eyes make her feel dirty, obscene, defiled.

* * *

Brandon dies, and she feels it before Rhaegar tells her. She tells herself the pain is just her belly, swollen with a child whose father she doesn't know, but she feels it in her heart the moment her brother leaves this world.

Her silver prince tells her as kindly as he can, whispering how sorry he is, how he had no idea this would happen, but it sounds like he is speaking from the ocean floor. She should feel guilty, she should feel she has taken her brother's life in her selfish haste, but at the moment she is too numb. _Brandon is dead_ , she thinks, and part of her is to.

But part of her isn't, part of her is bursting with a babe, and this is the only way he could ever leave her.

* * *

Ned comes at the end of it all. His eyes are sadder than ever, and she deserves him less than she ever did, but as she bleeds her last she lets herself be selfish once more. She will leave him now, and be with Brandon, and perhaps that is for the best. Perhaps she and Brandon were never meant to be man and woman, perhaps they were only ever wolves. Whereas Ned is human, though and through.

He takes her son and makes her a promise, his wife waiting for him back home. Lyanna is dying, as she has perhaps always been. But Ned, with her babe in his arms, he will live.


End file.
